Count me in that group. I would have watched borders more closely, and waited longer, for the Taliban to yield to pressure. If they had, we would have gained the best possible ally against Al Qaeda.

Instead, we empowered tribal politics, bought a revolution just like in the old days of Mossadegh, Allende, and Arbenz. And we gained about as much political success as we should expect by purchasing allies.

So we have a failed state, criminals at large, and the old regime trying to recover its power. Nice work, Mr. Bush.

And then there is Iraq.

I don't think it's fair to say that the US supported the Taliban prior to 9/11, but it certainly took no serious action against the Taliban. And lest we forget, a major reason for that was the Taliban's crackdown on opium production... which shot right back up after the Taliban were kicked out.

I believe that in the atmosphere after 9/11 it was hard not to invade Afghanistan, but I certainly agree that opposing the invasion was somehow delusional or unpatriotic or whatever. Afghanistan looks like a major success when compared to Iraq, but it's not clear to me that it's worth the resources spent there.

It's all part of the right-wing frame - if you're against invading some country, you've gotta be a subversive, far-left, unpatriotic, anti-American, flag-burning commie. Because how could any righteous American not want to kick some towelhead ass and bomb some third world country even further back into the stone age...

9/11 was basically a criminal act, not a military act, so our response should have been closer to an international law enforcement effort. Thank you. That is precisely why I was against the Afghan War, (and put up with MoveOns glut of e-mail, Actually they're much better about that now :) ) and signed all the petitions that were floating around just then.

If there was a worse way of going after terrorists, I can't think of any.

Frankly, I think the far reaching implications oand unintended consequences of this have proven dovish "wimps" like me right, in the long run.

I'm not sure why MoveOn is denying this, but I think that the petition speaks for itself.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030207124844/http://www.moveon.org/justice/

I have as much trouble with those who opposed our action in Afghanistan as I do with those who did it in such a half-hearted too little, too late way. If you want to be pacifist, fine. Stand up, say so, and be accountable for your position. The organizers of MoveOn were anti-war and pacifist. They need not lie about it now.

Afghanistan presented a clear, morally justifiable just-war situation of pure self-defense against a nation supporting and harboring a organization that took direct military/terrorist action against the U.S. How Bush screwed this up and instead invaded Iraq is the height of incompetence and is criminal. Now, over seven years later neither we or our puppet government in Afghanistan have control of the country. Osama, Omar, and others are still loose. Worse, we have the U.S. bloodied by the failed occupation of Iraq and embarrassed with war crimes ordered by Bush.

Matthew
http://www.TheIndependentView.com

Hillary: "I have always been opposed to MoveOn's position on Afghanistan, but have only waited until to express my oppostion to MoveOn.org because I was hoping to get the votes of their unpatriotic, radical and obviously un-American supporters."

Now don't get me wrong, I wanted to kick someones ass for 9-11 as much as anyone. However I did see a few major reasons for not starting a war. So I was torn at the time.

One: I felt it was a simple mis understanding of the motivations and extremes of the minds of Al-Qaeda members. They have one desire, to kill Americans. There highest belief is that if they die doing this they go straight to heaven and get to have there way with many virgins. So in essence sending our sons and daughters after them was giving them exactly what they wanted. A chance to kill Americans in there own back yard.

Two: This was my major feeling against the war. I knew from the beginning there was something wrong with The Bush administration. I knew that he wanted the war too much and that there were reasons other then the obvious why this was so. I saw how the attacks against anyone who didn't agree with the war had already started.

More importantly I saw how effective the attacks against peoples patriotism were. I felt that giving THIS president the keys to the war machine was dangerous. My true fear was that if we were in a nasty enough situation when his term was about to be up that he would be able to extend his power. 2005 a bill was put through the senate that would suspend the 22nd amendment if passed. It was never voted on but is still out there floating around.

So like I said I believed that something needed to be done, however I did see very real dangers in going into any war while Bush was president. I still do, because we may just be one terrorist attack away from that bill being passed.

I would like to refresh your memory about the Taliban *after* 9/11 - they didn't deny the extradition, they demanded PROOF, and the condition that Osama bin Laden be tried in a neutral court. To this day, have we seen any EVIDENCE produced? We only took the word of politicians and pundits. Since the top suspects were all tried in secret, not in a court of law, there is a black out of due process.

Even if Al Q is guilty beyond doubt, the Talibans were NOT guilty of 9/11, just guilt by association with Al Q. Harboring the criminals is not the same as committing the crimes.

There's so much obfuscation in the "War On Terror" I think many of us have lost our judiciary frame of reference. Our sense of what must be done, what is "right" comes straight from the limbic lobe divorced from the sanctity of international law, habeas corpus, individual rights and due process.

Destor, the fabulous Hilzoy agrees with you, and everyone should read her post on this:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/04/ok-now-i-care.html

Destor leaves out the prelude to the invasion and that was America's request for the Taliban to turn Bin Laden over for criminal prosecution. The Taliban had the opportunity to do so. So, we did it right by trying to resolve the issue as a criminal matter.

There are always many good reasons not to go to war. It's the toughest call any politician ever has to make, because there are huge negatives if you do or do not act.

I did. Y'all are free to argue over whether or not you think I'm reasonable, but I always did think that it made absolutely no sense to go bomb a country that already has been over-bombed back to the Stone Age.

To what end?

But then, I'm a student of history and of anthropology and I see very clearly just how futile war is - it is man's most futile endeavor. It never solves the problem - it always creates new ones.

I supported our going into Afghanistan in 2011 simply to destroy the Al Qaeda infrastructure and try to capture/kill it's leadership. However, I think that taking the next step--overthgrowing the Taliban was emotionally satisfying but short-sighted.

First, the Taliban gave sanctuary to Al Qaeda, but were not part of it and probably had no knowledge of 9/11.

Second, although the Taliban had despicable policies so did the viable alternatives, namely the warlords. It's a place where there are no good choices.

Finally, pragmatism. The Russians sent 250,000 men and material and certainly were highly motivated to sustain an unpopular regime---one that by the way, although Communist, did make attempts to move the country towards modernization (liberating women)...and failed.

We will do no better if we try to do what they did--and we'd be fighting against exactly the same groups they fought. Afghanistanis will never allow foreigners to control their country.

Best short account of Russian experience is in
Robert Fisk's Great War for Civilization where he recounts his experiences as a war correspondent there. The Russians tried the carrot and the stick, tried allying withsome groups vs. others---all the same as what we have done and will do----all for naught.

Incidentally, turns out our side (Brzezinski plus Charlie Wilson) armed the jihadists who made the Russians feel they needed to intervene---what we wanted to happen to bloody them up as payback for Vietnam.

America was going to make some kind of military response to 9/11. While it may be soothing to complain about war in general
(but then there's those pesky important wars to win --Civil War, WWII, for example), Afghanistan was the "right" war if there was to be one.